Never in my lifetime has a man so diminished the office of president in such a short time.

Give him a chance, my conservative friends cry.

How many chances does this man need to act like a decent and kind human being?

The Scriptures tell us that you will know a man’s heart by the words that come spewing forth from his mouth. By now you should figure out that my heart is troubled, deeply, deeply troubled.

You should also know that Trump is an evil-hearted man.

Sister Tater called me this morning via Facetime. “What are you doing?” she asked. Sister Tater is undergoing surgeries for breast cancer so I am loathe to tell her anything negative these days but this morning, after Trump went off on a foul tweet storm aimed at a woman journalist I couldn’t help myself.

“I’m sitting here pondering the civil war that is surely coming to this country and worrying about our grandchildren,” I replied.

Sister Tater looked at me askance. She didn’t know about the tweetstorm.

Or the new ad from the NRA. The one that basically incites gun-owners to shoot protesters or anyone who disagrees with Trump.

Rather than telling her about all that in detail, I told my sis about a barge I saw on the Columbia River yesterday. Barges on the river are not an unusual sighting around here. But there is construction underway at the bridge that connects Oregon to Washington, so the traffic was moving slower, allowing more time for me to study the barge headed upriver.

It was heaped full of scraps of what appeared to be metal. Shiny strips forming a mound that rose above the container’s ridges. Maybe it wasn’t steel. I couldn’t be sure given the distance between us. But if it was scraps of steel, I worried about what if it overturned. How many fish would it kill? What about the birds? What sort of ecological disaster would such a thing incur?

Such is the mind of a writer. Always considering the obstacles and the possible solutions. Plot development, we call it.

The barge had to weigh several tons. And the current in the Columbia? Well, it’s infamous. Even on those smooth-as-glass days like yesterday, the river still is capable of knocking a person off their feet and swallowing them whole in a hot second. Kayaking against such a current will wear a person flat out.

You wouldn’t imagine that a little ole tugboat could push such a thing upriver. Yet it was. Seemingly effortlessly. The tug cut an unwavering path through that current, breezily pushing its heavy load. The tug was a whisper through the Gorge canyons.

Like the uttered prayers of the wholly devoted.

That’s what we need right now. The uttered prayers of the wholly devoted. We need to be as intentional as that tug about pushing all the junk upriver. Praying is the only thing that is going to enable us to fight the current of hate and vitriol and violence that is threatening to take this country under.

I don’t mean the pious prayers of the self-righteous.

I mean the desperate prayers of the wholly devoted.

It’s not enough to worry about Trump’s hate-filled tweets. Or the NRA’s despicable call to violence.

Prayer is the tugboat that will enable us to move against the current political crisis threatening our country, our way of life, our governing institutions.

Without the prayers of the wholly devoted, the threat to all of us increases daily, moment by moment.

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7 Comments

Got a forwarded piece a while back from a colleague in my aviation work whom I've never met face to face and only spoken with on the phone once. It was a long laundry list of statements beginning with "'YOU' created 'US' when you....." (attacked our religion, took prayer out of school, burned our flag, etc., etc.). Of course, I was supposed to forward it to everyone I know.
In other words, "I" created Trump and his base by all the evil things I've done. Nice to feel so judged and condemned by someone I've never met. I wasn't aware I was doing any of those things while I served 10 years as a mostly unpaid pastor to homeless and mentally ill folks on the street and served over 18,000 meals on a budget of 0 dollars and 0 cents...
But what a marvelous discussion starter that unsolicited email was! Door slammer, flat screen giving me the finger is what it was.
Here in Portland we've had a bunch of hooligans doing a bunch of name-calling and a bunch of property destruction, disruption of life and a whole lot of irresponsible things. That's true, but as usual, they are the visible fringe, not the majority.
That said, one of the things you learn by spending time with people whose daily life and entire growing up has been punctuated by flared tempers, verbal insults and throwing punches: CONTROL YOU OWN TEMPERS AND EMOTIONS, AND DON'T ESCALATE THE SITUATION.
In other words, don't respond in kind. Don't attempt to outyell a person who is yelling at the top of his lungs.
First Lady said today that when her husband is "attacked", he will hit back 10 times as hard. Not exactly de-escalating the situation, is it? But then, is honest, constructive criticism, is any honest disagreement and different conclusion an "attack" that must be met by hyperbole, insults, name-calling and character assassination? First Lady said her husband's response to critics was not bullying. OK, ma'am, then what IS bullying? Give me an example, since that's your chosen project as First Lady. I'm listening...
Would be nice to hear her and the President explain how they understand Matthew 5:37-42. Praying with you sister. Praying...

Trump can't explain something he's never read and that eliminates 99 percent of everything. I don't think he's read anything that wasn't written about him. I am in despair over this country. Utter despair.

If I carried on publicly the way President Trump does, my daughter would upbraid me up one side and down the other and threaten to disown me. If I then persisted, she would follow through. Rightly so, I might add. Tough to understand why brothers, sons, daughters or son-in-law don't speak up publicly and put their feet down. And the President's wife... Why doesn't she say, "This is absolutely no example to set for our son?" Is there such a thing as self-addiction? Can it affect an entire family? If so, can we keep it from affecting an entire nation?

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Karen Spears Zacharias

Karen Spears Zacharias grew up in a military family. Her father was killed in action in 1966. That early experience led Karen into a career as a journalist. She studied at Berry College, Oregon State University and Eastern Oregon University.
Karen has worked at newspapers around the country. Her commentary has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, CNN, National Public Radio and The Huffington Post.
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